Monday, August 3, 2009

Pray to the sun goddess and Laugh

Masses of people reach to the sky, pray to the sun goddess, men jumping with joy, women running naked around bond fires and children laughing with delight. The new and improved curiousroom.com web site is ready to launch. Of course it took way more work than I anticipated and I couldn't have done it without the html wonder worker Josiah Spence, who endured hundreds of my emails throwing abstract design instructions in his direction, and the sound web wisdom of Tom Bartling offering advice as needed. At the risk of changing gears and downshifting to reverse brings me to the topic of staring at large amounts of artwork for long periods of time on a monitor. Styles blur together, images of surreal Bambi's and colorful cows invade my sleep and I have dreams of being frozen in place as a huge blue-green wave of (high quality) oil paint submerges my body in a aqua velvet world. Of course this is preferable to my usual re-occurring dream of being in an existential black and white mock up of my elementary school (no joke) and a footnote sitting in the corner of Naguchi's 1940's studio. Go figure...... so browse the site and then build a fire in your yard and dance around it (counter clockwise please).

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I just finished a six week course at Steve Dubov's studio on bronze casting. Excellent class and I learned that the process is a HUGE amount of work (endless grinding). I made these crazy idol friends. I think I need to give them names so they will stop staring at me!

Friday, June 12, 2009

On Beauty,I want to ask a question, what is your idea of beauty? It is something I have been pondering recently. I was in a sentimental mood last night and was watching The English Patient because I always marvel at how well crafted the film is. Writing, visuals, acting—all in one cohesive package. I thought it was beautiful and in my mind I link art with beauty. I was speaking with a sculptor friend and we were debating the age old question, what is art? He said that art is intention. At first I was unsure, but now I think it is true. You cannot have art without intention. Taking this one step further, can there be beauty without intention? The intention to find beauty in life. When I asked myself the question what is beauty to me, strangely, the first image that came to mind was watching my hand change shape as I ran it under the green water while in a small boat at a lake. Strange, I didn't think of beautiful women or amazing paintings or wondrous architecture but an event that happened long time ago. Other things come to mind; Snippets of memory watching a film with a high school girlfriend, or eating an amazing risotto on a sunny Italian patio, or drawing intricate patterns in blue chalk on cracked gray sidewalks. Beauty can be an event too. It can be action. There is beauty in love making, but there is also beauty in other actions. A powerful image that comes to my mind is pouring cold water over my head after spending sweaty energy in a hard played soccer game. Beauty makes you feel good as does some actions. Last night it stormed with fabulous lightning storms and driving rain and hail. I loved it. It was like mother nature (or whatever you bow down to) was saying, "hey, look at me! I am beautiful. And tonight my mood is dangerous and I am tragically beautiful." Glorious indeed. Beauty, sometimes I have to work for it.